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Mageia 2 Alpha 3 arrives for testing

The Mageia community has released the third and final alpha of version 2 of its Mandriva Linux community fork. According to the Mageia 2 schedule, the alpha 3 release will be followed by two betas and a release candidate, with the final version expected to arrive on 3 May 2012.

Aimed at developers and testers, Mageia 2 Alpha 3 is based on the current stable release of the 3.2 Linux kernel, which will be upgraded to Linux 3.3 before the final release, and includes a choice of the final RC for KDE SC 4.8 (KDE 4.7.97) or GNOME 3.3.3, an unstable development release of what will become GNOME 3.4, as the default desktop. Version 2 also sees the developers switch the distribution to the systemd init system for "a simpler boot process, and easier maintenance"; Mandriva Linux, from which Mageia is derived, switched to systemd in its 2011 release. Package updates include Python 2.7.2 and 3.2.2, PHP 5.3.9 RC4, Perl 5.14.2 and GCC 4.6.2.

Users are asked to focus their testing on hardware detection, the boot process and ISO content. As with all development releases, use in production environments and on mission critical systems is not advised. Those testing the release are encouraged to provide feedback and report any bugs that they find.

Additional information about the third alpha, including a list of known issues, can be found in the release notes and on the technical specifications page. Mageia 2 Alpha 3 is available to download for 32- and 64-bit systems; the developers note that, due to blocking issues, LiveCDs are not currently available, adding that they should be published at a later time.